Matching daily healthcare provider capacity to demand in advanced access scheduling systems

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ejor.2006.10.003 Byline: Xiuli Qu (a), Ronald L. Rardin (a), Julie Ann S. Williams (b), Deanna R. Willis (c) Keywords: OR in health service; Appointment scheduling; Advanced access; No-show rate Abstract: Advanced access scheduling, introduced in the early 1990s, is reported to significantly improve the performance of outpatient clinics. The successful implementation of advanced access scheduling requires the match of daily healthcare provider capacity with patient demand. In this paper, for the first time a closed-form approach is presented to determine the optimal percentage of open-access appointments to match daily provider capacity to demand. This paper introduces the conditions for the optimal percentage of open-access appointments and the procedure to find the optimal percentage. Furthermore, the sensitivity of the optimal percentage of open-access appointments to provider capacity, no-show rates, and demand distribution is investigated. Our results demonstrate that the optimal percentage of open-access appointments mainly depends on the ratio of the average demand for open-access appointments to provider capacity and the ratio of the show-up rates for prescheduled and open-access appointments. Author Affiliation: (a) Purdue University, School of Industrial Engineering, 315 N. Grant Street, West Lafayette, IN 47907-2023, United States (b) University of West Florida, Department of Management and MIS, 11000 University Parkway, Bldg 76/128, Pensacola, FL 32514-5752, United States (c) Indiana University, Department of Family Medicine, 1110 W Michigan Street, Indianapolis, IN 46202, United States Article History: Received 17 December 2005; Accepted 25 October 2006